16th is when we all started working for the government.
@ Chodorov, "THE SOVEREIGN TAX-COLLECTOR," One is a Crowd...In short, sovereignty is a matter of taxation; the more taxation
the more sovereignty. Conversely, the immunity of the
people is in proportion to the amount of their wealth they
can keep out of the government's hands. It follows, then,
that the Sixteenth Amendment, which gives the government
a prior claim on all the production of the country, puts
the government in the way of acquiring as much power as
it is possible for a government to exercise; that is, under our
revised Constitution it is possible for the government to
attain absolutism. The introduction of income taxation destroyed
the original concept of the Union—as consisting of
autonomous states, in which political power was a concession
from sovereign citizens—just as effectively as if it had
been done by a foreign invader.
The indisputable fact of the Sixteenth Amendment is its
socialism; it denies the right of private property....
In short, sovereignty is a matter of taxation; the more taxation
the more sovereignty. Conversely, the immunity of the
people is in proportion to the amount of their wealth they
can keep out of the government's hands. It follows, then,
that the Sixteenth Amendment, which gives the government
a prior claim on all the production of the country, puts
the government in the way of acquiring as much power as
it is possible for a government to exercise; that is, under our
revised Constitution it is possible for the government to
attain absolutism. The introduction of income taxation destroyed
the original concept of the Union—as consisting of
autonomous states, in which political power was a concession
from sovereign citizens—just as effectively as if it had
been done by a foreign invader.
The indisputable fact of the Sixteenth Amendment is its
socialism; it denies the right of private property....
First comes the confiscation under cover of
law; with confiscation comes power, or the means of employing
policemen (as well as publicists and lawyers) to
compel or induce people to do that which they would not
do if left alone and in possession of their wealth; power feeds
on power, and so we have the Welfare State, or the complete
denial of the sanctity of the individual and the glorification
of the amorphous god, State....
Last edited by Chris; 09-13-2013 at 09:59 PM.
Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler
Mainecoons (09-14-2013)
The income tax was actually first created in 1861 under Lincoln to fund the civil war, though it was temporary. When it became permanent it was relatively tiny. You had you be a millionaire in order for it to effect you, and even when you've made the mark it effected you in a very small way. It wasn't until the 30's when everyone started working for the Federal Government.
Mainecoons (09-14-2013)
What I'm getting at is more pernicious than loss of federalism to federal government. Chodorov develops the 16th amendment theme in another essay, "In Defense of Theives," in One is a Crowd. Keep in mind this was written in the 1950s...
...Forty years ago it
would have been laughed at; it would never have been
thought up. For, in those days it was taken for granted that
the politician was a menial in the employ of Big Business.
The idea that the hireling could "put the heat on" the men
who made him would have been unthinkable.
The incidence of power has changed, and that is the point
of the Wall Street rumor. When you read Gustavus Myers's
History of the Great American Fortunes, or Lincoln Steffens's
account of the muckraking era, in his Autobiography,
you learn how Big Business made presidents, bought legislators
and dictated judicial decisions. Up to early in this
century, according to these historians, the political machinery
of this country was an adjunct of monopoly. If a franchise
was wanted, or a grant of land or a lucrative contract,
the thing to do was to pack the legislative or executive
branches with men of the right kind of integrity. There might
be a fight between one gang of privilege-hunters and another,
between a Gould and a Vanderbilt, and the fight
might reach the sacred legislative halls, but the respective
agents of these men simply carried out orders; they rarely
presumed to do otherwise. Their recompense was the security
of political preferment, so long as they remained dutiful
servants, with participation in the loot if they were particularly
useful.
...This turn of events indicates that Big Business has lost its
dominance over Politics. The bureaucrat is in the driver's
seat. The successors of the robber barons of the nineteenth
century operate on sufferance; the obsequiousness of their
lobbyists in Washington is pitiful to behold....
...Let's put aside any moral evaluation of the old time
method. We can concede that the egregious railroad landgrants
amounted to thievery; the right of the people to the
use of this land was abrogated without any warrant in ethics,
and the operations of the Hills and the Harrimans, in cahoots
with servile legislators, were little more than a confidence
game. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that these men did
build railroads. Their motive was profit, to be sure, even
though they prated about building an American empire.
But, production has to precede profit. They had to provide a
transportation service. What they got from their elected
servants was an exclusive privilege, enabling them to wangle
a monopoly profit out of the users of the railroads, more than
they could have got out of competitive business.
...As for the public servants who served these robber barons,
what else could they do? Despite the delusion of "clean politics,"
the only use to which political power can be put is the
creation of privilege. Theoretically, government can be
"good," but only if its functions are restricted to the protection
of life and property; but, to that purely negative occupation
rulers have never confined themselves, and there is
some doubt that the ruled would be satisfied with that kind
of government In practice, the art of ruling settles down to
the granting of economic privileges to a few, to the disadvantage
of the many; the beneficiaries of these privileges are
either the politicians themselves or their supporting patrons....
...We hear less and less about the "system" these days, and
the enthusiasm for "clean" politics has given way to the worship
of power. Liberality in the diffusion of privilege has
raised the politician to the pinnacle of high-priest while the
increase of taxation has made us more and more and more
dependent upon his beneficence....
...The diffusion of privilege in all directions had the marvellous
result of freeing the politician from vassalage to any one
gang. In the old days he might play one group against another,
he might even take bribes from both; but, after he had
befouled himself he was no longer a free agent; he was a tool.
Long before 1933, such reforms as the direct election of
senators and woman suffrage had weakened the hold that
Big Business had upon him, and the prohibition movement
showed him that even organized religion was amenable to
political reason. The New Deal, of course, completely liberated
him from his old dependency; for here was in one
package all the "social legislation" needed to build up a supporting
cast of diverse interests. Now he could flaunt the
union crowd in the face of the haughty Union League; the
railroad magnates took a secondary place in his loyalty after
"parity" had won him the hearts of the farmers; reciprocal
trade treaties put in his hand a weapon against arrogant
protectionists; there was no "economic royalist" powerful
enough to stand up to the powers of intervention he had
acquired by reform.
To be exact, the unshackling of the politician began in
1913, when the Sixteenth Amendment handed him the economic
key. After that, as exigencies permitted, he could buy
the loyalty of the jobless with sustenance, or the support of
entire sections by voting it gratuities supplied by other sections.
This limitless income meant bigger contracts and more
liberal subsidies with which to buy the adulation of industrialists,
bankers and housewives. Now he could be the bribegiver,
rather than the bribe-taker. The income tax completely
changed the character of the American politician.
...In this scheme of things, he becomes indispensable
to Big Business, Big Education, Big Unionism, Big Anything.
Enterprise of any kind cannot manage without him, and his
services—at an honorarium, not a bribe—are sought for.
However, this "clean" politician cannot bring to the marketplace
a single good, any more than his unwashed predecessor
could....
It has come to pass, then, that those who once danced to
the fiddles of the Empire Builders now call the tunes....
Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler